I'm sure this is a basic basic basic thing but it's making me nuts. I'm trying to make the simple shape of a slightly extruded rectangle with rounded corners. I've tried a bunch of different ways...from making a poly cube and and scaling it along the z-axis, then smoothing those faces to creating and connecting curves then making it planar (which I can't extrude) to drawing everything in curves which I can never get to match exactly. Basically, I'm trying to make a rounded rectangle with some depth so I can later do a closed sweep along the edges to give it a groove. If anyone can set me in the right direction, I'd be muchos appreciative.

yep, bevelling will do the job, if you dont know how to bevel:
click the edges you want to bevel then click edit polygons, bevel options, adjust the roundness, offset and segment(i recommend 4 or 5 nor more than that)... then click bevel.. whoala the edge is rounded!!!

I'm not sure what you have done, it seems like you have tried both nurbs-modeling and polygon-modeling. But I feel that this will be helpful:

About curves:
Consider using the circle primitive. It's but a circle but pick vertic-pairs and scale them so that they move closer or further away from each other. Alternatively pick the vertice-pair and use the move tool to move them up or down. The point is that you get to keep the symmetry this way.

About attatching curves:
If attatching curves doesn't seem to work (the way you want), then either reverse the curve direction for the appropriate curve. If you right-klick the curve(s) and view the vertices, you will notice that the curve has a small square and a small U shape around the first two vertices on a curve. The small square is the first vertice on the curve, the U is the indicator for which way the curve runs.

About pivot points:
Use the "insert" key on the keyboard to go into "alter pivot-point-position". Useful for accuratly duplicating/mirroring curves around/about a centerpoint (e.g like in the grid center).

About modeling techniques:
There is probably several way to make that board of yours,

Here's what I think:

A (nurbs) (Keep history button on for less work)

1) Tweak a nurbs-circle into a rounded square, pretty easy
2) Duplicate it about three-four times and keep a little space between them, with history button on you can loft these and move/tweak the curves while wathcing the lofted shape follow the curves along the tweaking.
3) Scale the outer-most curves a little innwards
4) Loft the curves with "square degree" or linear lofting.
5) For making the front-side-frame duplicate the outer-most curve and scale it innwards.
6) Loft the last two curves.

By now I think you get the idea.

B (polygons)

1) Make a poly-cube-primitive, and duplicate it. Scale the smaller one down but make the depth deeper than the bigger one, because you will pick:
-the big cube and shift klick the small cube and select "Polygon --> Boolean --> Difference" for making an edgy frame.
2) Open Bevel Options under Edit Polygons
3) Set roundness to about 0.3 - 0.5 or something like that
4) Set the radius (important) to a low value. If your cube is 1 meter wide, try 0.1 in radius.
5) Pick the poly-frame and press the apply in the bevel options window, if your results wasn't satisfactory, press Z to undo it and try again.
6) The normals usually get all messed up with the bevel tool, so you have to get them to get along with each other.

Ok, I see what you're saying. I beveled the corner edges of a flattened cube so it looks kind of like a 3d movie screen. The problem is trying to do a closed sweep around it. The best way to explain it would be similar to a extruding something based on a profile curve in NURBS, like having a circle and extruding it along a curve to form a tube. In this case, I want to use the outside edges of the poly cube to be the path and a drawn cross-section on top of it to sweep around it. Is this possible or am I going to have to go a different route?

Thanks for the bevel tips, btw and the info on posting inline images. That's good to know.

Thanks for that Undseth. That gives me some more to work with. I never imagined making something so simple would have so many things you'd have to look out for but I guess it's all a part of learning. I just keep wanting to run before I can walk. Thanks again for the help.

About Us

A little bit about who we are

People we like

Links you might find useful

Connect with

Catch up with SimplyMaya

SimplyMaya specialises in Maya tutorials. We offer over 1,000 individual Maya training videos, ranging from basic Maya tutorials through to intermediate Maya tutorials. Our tutorials are created by instructors with industry experience and are designed to get you up and running in Maya quickly without making it seem like hard work.